Money

Value of, relationships with, finance books, eco guilt, aesthetic minimalism and making sustainable changes.

Writing this felt incredibly vulnerable. I often had a sick feeling in my stomach as I reflected on my financial habits and was honest with myself about the actions I have and haven’t taken when it comes to this area of my life. I think we all feel a bit like this about money. So, I hope that you find the below helpful.

In Greek culture, it’s customary, when giving a wallet as a present*, that you ensure there is some money inside. Likewise, a money box or similar. Growing up, my understanding of money was limited, and somewhat built on this; this attitude being money is not something that can really be understood but you go along with it anyway. This is an approach I have been working on changing, but somewhat failing to do so, for the past little while.

Unsurprisingly, lessons about money are taught up subconsciously or overtly from a young age. If I was ever lucky enough to receive money for anything it would often burn a hole in my pocket. This coupled with my fervent desire to acquire ‘things’ made for quite the combination. I could write about my lessons (or lack thereof) regarding money from my family, and the fact that we don’t learn about these topics in school, but that feels somewhat redundant when trying to change behaviours that I still carry at the age of 34.

To change my own attitude and as a result habit when it comes to money, the main thing I’ve had to do is become more conscious of it. And this has happened in quite a few ways. Some feel nicer than others. Before I share what those ways are, I will explain why I felt there was a need for it to change.

Like most people when it comes to money, I would work for it, watch it come into my bank account before watching it trickle, or gush out again. The outgoings were what can be categorised as living expenses; mortgage repayments, bills, and groceries etc. then there were living expenses which were more choice based; dinners out, movies, haircuts, and eyebrow waxing. Following on from this pattern there were then things I was able to deem essential in other areas of life e.g., shampoo and plain t-shirts and then those which were more frivolous but, in my mind, necessary purchases; multiple pairs of pants for work, the same top in four colours and on we go. The cycle I was stuck in with money didn’t see me addicted to gambling or stocks but in all honest, just spending it.

One of the benefits to working in the government system as I do, is the incremental pay rises. These have meant I’ve seen a steady increase in my pay since starting. It also means I have never had to have a conversation with anyone (except at times the bank and my partner) about what I earn. These discussions however are never about value or worth or competition but just facts. Something I imagine has added to feelings of comfortability. My pay feels like something that happens to me. Please, do not think I am ungrateful nor that I doubt the work that people put into receive their pay, regardless of what hand they’ve had in negotiating it. I mention this because it is about the lack of interaction, I have had to have with it, or others about it.

Since starting my first full time job 10 years ago, I have had the pay rises but also with this comes the lifestyle creep. To add some credibility to this definition, I have turned to Wikipedia which describes this as the fact our spending increases as our pay does. And, when this happens, and this resonates the most, what we once deemed luxuries are now necessities. And this my friends, is how I have ended up buying $60 shampoo. I have a partner who, and this may come as a surprise to no one, is much more across the finances. This somewhat mindless spending and lack of understanding about the situation compounded by a new house purchase was really the tipping point. No one likes fighting about money.  

Finance books have come along way, and we can probably thank the wellness industry for that. The acknowledgment that money is tied to ideas of identity and is emotional is in contradiction to the finance books of the 90s I grew up with. Books that had photos of old white men on the covers, or claimed you could be a millionaire, or taught you how to tackle investing. Thought, in all honesty, I didn’t realise money and headspace had been linked together as early as 1937 in Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. Though some of the advice, I don’t really understand such as ‘Use autosuggestion to build an unshakable belief in yourself.’ Here are a few books I have read over the past couple of years to better understand my relationship with money:

I originally bought Otegha Uwagba’s We Need To Talk About Money because I like Otegha Uwagba. Reading this in 2021, upon its release, I didn’t know what I would be reading about. It’s described as part cultural commentary and part memoir. And this is true. But you are also confronted with truths about money that many of us try to ignore, class, racism, gender, and privilege.

Ken Honda’s Happy Money is a personal-development book about finances. It says things like ‘zen path to prosperity’ and examines ideas around self-worth and money, as well as moving on from any old wounds. Whilst I appreciated the energy coming from this book, I don’t know if the ideas that money flows like water or to treat it like a guest is really getting to the heart of the matter. I mean sometimes I’m worried if I put my bank card into my wallet upside down ‘the money will fall out, but that hasn’t really made me understand much about money either, only that I still have a somewhat mystical approach.

Mind Over Money by Evan Lucas is one of the most helpful books that I’ve read. Like the others, it assists you in helping understand your relationship with money. At first, as we saw, I was dismissive of this, but as I was reading I felt the knots loosen a little and I was able to be more objective about my own behaviours and instead of coming after myself for them, look at them objectively and think about what was important to me, what was within my budget and lifestyle and what was really stressing me out.

In the same vain, I really enjoyed Clear Seal’s Five Steps to Financial Wellbeing. The back of the book promises to ‘change your relationship with money for good’. And whilst I won’t claim that this book was the only factor, I think this was definitely a right place, right time, right headspace to be open to what was in it. Whilst it helped me further understand my relationship with money it also helped me calm down about the whole situation which helped me to talk about the situation. I don’t know if I can articulate what I would say my relationship was with money other than ‘spend it’.

Recently I have been teaching Parasite to my Year 12s. Though the film is set in South Korea and reflects ideas of Neoliberalism and Neocapitalism, unpacking this commentary has made me consider the insidious nature of money and the attitude of working hard, as well as who and what it’s for. I have joked that I am a consumerist and a capitalist. And whilst I might make donations or round up my grocery bill at the supermarket, I have lived with blinkers on about the far-reaching impact of our collective decisions around money, mainly because I’m not rich, I excused myself from contributing to the problem.

I won’t go too far into social economics because I don’t know enough about them, but perhaps this is the problem, I’m too nervous to talk about it.

Working with teenagers is very interesting when it comes to matters of money. Basically, because they have a very astute sense of what they think things are worth. $19 for a chicken schnitzel wrap from a chain of fast-food (but a little better) style restaurant? Too expensive. Yet if I can get lunch for under $20, I don’t think it’s too bad. Whilst I realise, I am in a completely different financial position to them and remember spending all my money on magazines and alcohol at their age I appreciate the frankness. I find it quite refreshing. In a similar vein, I teach at and attended a school (different schools) with no uniform, I would often tackle this by feeling like I had to have different things to wear all the time. I don’t feel like my students think like this, I also think that the trend of thrifting and second-hand shopping has encouraged them to step away from the mass produced and buying new things all the time.

But external influences (and influencers) and perception of lifestyle is a funny thing.

Instagram is such a great place for making everyone think that everyone’s house is aesthetically pleasing, Pinterest helps you create mood boards to manifest it to be this way and YouTube shows us the attaining and organisation of the items and look. TikTok could fit into here somewhere, but as I’m not on TikTok I don’t know where.

Shopping is so easy these days. You have Afterpay, browser extensions that keep track of sales and stock levels of items as well as your payment details permanently logged onto your computer. You have a muchwider circle of people recommending that you buy certain products, as well as tracking you from device to device, learning your spending habits and pushing products to you when you’re particularly vulnerable, like at a certain time of the month, or based on your location. There is a convenience in this. Jokes have been made about people describing exactly what they want out aloud in the hope their phone will buy it for them. Google have been spruiking their app’s ability to scan a photo and then find you where it’s from or something similar. And whilst I always try to ween myself off online shopping, in a lot of situations online stores offer much greater variety and a far less intimidating shopping experience than their bricks and mortar counterparts.

The idea of the internet trending ‘girl math’ comes into its own when you talk about spending more to get free shipping.

We all know that internet is a great place for honesty, but it’s also an excellent place for construction. In addition to this we have spoken about the confusion around how influencers make money on The Middle Part before. The reason I bring these two things up is because lifestyles are portrayed to us which we attempt to keep up with a new type of ‘keeping up with the Joneses’. When I first started following a lot of influencers, we were in similar positions, working for what we wanted, etc. But now with changes in the industry, and the industry settling into what success looks like, often these people (or appear to) lead lifestyles reserved for traditional celebrities.

And in some instances, ‘minimal’ and/or ‘eco’ lifestyles come with their own notions of wealth and cost.

Some of you may be aware of the increased sales of Stanley Cups. Some of you may have no idea what I’m talking about. Long story short, the Stanley Cup went viral. It has led to people stealing them, bullying people for not having the ‘legitimate’ Stanley Cup and buying many variations or collaborations. The Stanley Cup is just the latest accessory that is trending but purchasing this can also be easily disguised as an eco-friendly decision. Ditto Frank Green water bottles, mason jars, reusable bags, phone cases made from seeds and any other items that can both be an accessory linked to our identity as well as a tie to a larger cultural movement. It can be easy to justify paying a premium for a product if we believe it’s better for the environment. Much of the rhetoric around reducing consumerism is to buy less but buy better an excellent way to give yourself permission to spend more. Likewise, minimalism can almost give the impression that one must have things of a certain make or style to participate in a minimal lifestyle. I’m sure several of us have been guilty of decluttering only to go and buy a whole range of organisational items to manage the things we do have, until this whole situation become unruly, or you declutter too much and go buy all those things again.

In a similar school of thought, I have bought more expensive (under the assumption) they are better quality clothes with the idea of having them longer only for my body to change and for me to feel upset and that I have wasted money. Sometimes I suffer from an eco guilt and assume that the more I spend on something, the less morally ‘bad’ a product is (animal testing, poor labour wages, working conditions etc.), but that’s not always true, which adds to the confusion.

As discussed in Prep and Plan With Me, participating in this moral and seasonal cycle is an excellent way for content creators to fill their content calendars**. This cycle also ensures we don’t ever really make sustainable changes to our spending habits, or our relationships with our belongings.

Naturally these changes are a work in progress. I need to be diligent, kind and continually talk to myself when it comes to my thoughts and unpacking what’s going on when I want to spend money, and what it is I want to spend money on. It’s also meant a new budget and considering what is of value to me.

Our relationship with money has come along way, and we haven’t even discussed the mystery of electronic money and its seemingly abstract value. Perhaps one for another time.

This is a particularly long one, so if you made it to the end, thank you!

*I owe my mate Sarah a note of some kind because I completely forgot about this.

** The Spacemaker Method makes my favourite decluttering videos